Nunquan Currere Teres
by emcewan
Summary: Against the ever hungry mother-city that is Gotham, who then will stand among the 10 Righteous to see her saved?  Only a few can hope for redemption.  Yet, when did anything ever run smooth?  Better than the summary, promise.
1. Setting the Scene

A/N: Well, here it is. Most likely it'll be my magnum opus in terms of fanfiction, other than my years-long Naruto fanfiction on deviantart under a different persona. This is... darker. Too dark for me to be comfortable posting under my other account. Thus, this one. Plus I changed email accounts...

Yes. This is a _24/Nolanverse!Batman_ crossover. However, it most likely will have characters or events or phrases from other series popping in and out, all set before the magnificently grandiose backdrop of Gotham City. I will warn you now-I am a huge, huge fan of Cillian Murphy's portrayal of Jonathan Crane and thought that it didn't receive either the screen time or the appreciation for his momentous decision to the formation of Batman's identity. Yes, the Joker is Batman's antithesis-but perhaps without _Crane_, Batman may never have been more than a brooding millionaire's pipe dream.

I will also warn you: this fic will be dark, disturbing, and might take you to places emotionally and morally that you don't want to go. I understand. I also know it's the only way I can write this story. I will be brutal in portraying both the good and the bad, the light and the dark so to speak, in every major player. This is set before Batman Begins, will go through each movies, and hopefully beyond. If I'm still writing it when the 3rd Nolan!Batman movie is released, I'll most likely be going through that too. (I also tend to use British spelling despite being American. Sorry. Well, not really but you know...)

This chapter's a prologue, the rest should be much longer.

Ta.

-EM

* * *

_** Nunquam Currere Teres**_

Latin: _"never did run smooth_"

The sky, like the city, is a dingy, washed-out grey. The pale mist that falls down seems hesitant, almost unwilling, to touch the filth-encrusted concrete sidewalks or the oil-slicked streets. The gutters seem to sigh arrogantly as they begin to feed upon the rainwater. Everywhere, the darkness is falling like a dying man's sight.

And still, he walks the beat.

Officer Bauer has lived in Gotham for so long now that the soul-wearying decay and violence of the city no longer surprises him. He has learned to live with being five minutes too late, or too early, and receiving another scar in the exchange. He is neither proud or ashamed of them; to him, they are Facts, like the height of Niagara Falls, or the diameter of the world. Immovable. His partner, an Italian-descent family man, watches him sometimes from the corner of his eye, like Bauer doesn't see Tony watching him. He does. He takes it in stride with his barely concealed rage and grief, and sees it as a new Fact in his life.

"Hey, Jack, our time's almost up. Better head back in," Almeida calls, checking his watch absentmindedly. Tony thinks that if he didn't keep an eye on the time that Jack would be out here for days, watching, protecting, searching. Hating. Although Tony's not sure who he hates more, the bastards that killed his wife or himself.

He is almost disturbed to find that he doesn't care anymore, but Almeida is weary, bone-through, and he thinks that maybe it's time to become an office cop after all. Michelle would like that, although being a lawyer wasn't really any safer except in theory. He didn't like to think of that though, preferring to see her in her court-suits, the smart ones that made him want to make love to her for days.

Almeida thinks longingly of her home-cooked lasagna (_she did say she was making that tonight, right? Or was that yesterday?_) and cracked his neck, sighing with the small pleasure. He'd kill for some coffee.

"Alright, Tony, the car's up ahead," Jack's whiskey-voice breaks through the monotonous sounds of the city settling into her uneasy, nightmare-laden sleep.

They climb into the car in silence, and drive back to the station.

* * *

She sighed, reached for the bottle of Naked, and took another sip, red pen in hand like a sword of battle. Shaking her head, she stabbed out and started marking the mistakes.

"Jesus Christ, kids are idiots these days," she muttered darkly. "I don't accept 'lol' as part of the proper English language yet, sweetheart."

She looks more like a student than a professor, hunched over her papers at the battered desk, the single desk lamp almost too bright for the dim apartment. She tries to make it through one more paper, but a gunshot rings through the air in the streets below, and she sees that as a sign that it's time to curl up in her empty bed, the dog her only company, and leave the rest for the too-soon morning.

She has just gotten settled, feeling the first distant comfort of sleep, when her cell shrieks. She snatches at it, lightning-fast but blearily, razor-sharp mind fighting through a sonorous fog.

"H'llo?" she mumbles tiredly, not bothering to check who'd called.

There is a hesitant, almost awkward pause before the caller speaks.

"I'm sorry, Maggie, did I wake you?" the man's voice asks. His voice is rich and smooth, like old wine or expensive chocolate. She perks up instantly.

"Hello, friend, I was wondering where you'd holed up over the weekend," she replies, and her voice is warm and gently teasing. She is always gentle with the scarecrow-man; she thinks that anything stronger than that might break him.

"You make it sound like I'm a hermit," he replies harshly, without meaning to. He is a master when it comes to public speaking, to holding acquaintances in thrall, but when it comes to personal interaction, he feels lost. Stilted, like some essential part of his growth has never seen the sunlight of affection. He tries his best to cover that vulnerability up, and she graciously overlooks it.

He feels a surge of something, perhaps gratitude or perhaps something deeper and darker than he cares to admit to just yet, and swallows the lump in his slender white throat.

"Staying out of trouble, then?"

"Oh, this and that. Burning the midnight oil," he chuckles hoarsely.

"Mm, I'm sure, and burning more than that, I reckon. Do those Bunsen burners of yours _ever_ shut off?" she shakes her head, her tone somehow carrying the action through the phone.

_Not until I reach the penultimate. Not until we are satisfied with the results. A pity our subject tonight didn't last... I'll have to tone down the dosage again._

"Ah well, ever the slave to science," he says vaguely.

"Sure it wasn't little Cheryl Richards? I think she was hoping to earn some 'extra credit'," she chuckles meaningfully into the phone.

He almost splutters in surprise, but that isn't dignified, so he coughs instead.

"Wh-what? That idiotic little minx that has half the class lusting for her and the other half doing her homework and papers for her?" he snorts derisively. Cheryl reminds him to much of _Sh—_of _Her_. He hates her with a surprising passion; he didn't think he still cared that much.

"Well, she's had her eye on _you_ for awhile there, Professor," she points out mildly, amused that her friend had missed the obvious signs, "she was practically undressing you with her eyes."

He feels sick, nauseated—and yet his ego is stroked. Why _shouldn't_ she want him? He was brilliant. A genius. Soon, the whole city would bow down before him and proclaim him as a god.

_Right?_

_**Right, Jonny-boy. And I for one wouldn't mind having your little friend by our side... or in our bed. This one won't hurt you if you make a move on her, and you know it. Just too chicken-shit to get your dick up and inside her. Bet she's tight and hot too... **_

_SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!_

"I don't go for insignificant little girls like her," he all-but-snarled, voice dropping an octave.

She shivered, feeling uneasy. She knew he was unstable, but was wondering if she should regret telling him. She thought that he might be interested in Cheryl; oh, she was a vapid pretty shell, but she was rich, and in the upper-echelon of the college society. She would have incredible connections, so long as she didn't get pregnant or get ugly. She would be an ideal trophy wife for her ambitious friend.

"... Jonathan?" she whispered. She liked the taste of his name on her tongue; it was different, classical. It suited him. She waited patiently, wondering if he would finally get the courage to move their friendship into something more, but once again, she was disappointed. It was almost becoming routine now. It was a frightening thought for her.

"I should let you sleep," he replied back smoothly.

She searched for hidden meaning there, a subtle request for invitation, and found none.

"Lunch tomorrow?" she asked lightly.

"Of course," he sounded surprised that she always asked. It was _tradition_ now.

"Hokay then hun. Bye Freud," she said softly, voice smiling into the phone.

"Bye, Shakespeare," his voice tentatively smiled back.

They both hung up, laying in their respective beds blocks apart, and thought until finally sleep claimed them.

* * *

Beyond the scope of their worlds, Gotham carried on.


	2. Chapter One: The Proverbial Straw

Here is the first chapter, hot off the creative presses. Literally, I just finished writing this. Oh, this isn't going to be a strictly Crane/Maggie story. It shall be twisted and dark and ugly before I'm through. Please review to tell me what you think? I'll keep writing and publishing it either way, but it's nice to know _someone_ out there is enjoying it, or at least intrigued by the concept. I'm trying to portray Maggie as how I think of her: a child of a different era, forced to endure our modern one, and bewildered when society can't accept her secret dreams. Or at least perceives her inability to form a meaningful romantic relationship as that. Plus, she has daddy issues, methinks. We'll see what turns up. Also, I see Crane as both desperate and repulsed by human affection and kindness. Then again, I'm a terrible terrible person to my characters. -smiles brightly-

Ta.

-EM

* * *

**Chapter One: The Proverbial Straw**

The watery sunlight cut through the clinging chill of a faded winter, and she sat down in front of the beautiful man in front of her with a sigh. He raised his dark eyebrows in surprise.

"Aren't you usually the one waiting for me?" he quipped, the ghost of a smile playing around his sculpted face. She groaned.

"I got sidetracked by the Dean's secretary. I swear, that woman is a bulldog when she has an issue... or gossip. Apparently the world is turning again," she muttered darkly, stirring her drink while staring into its inky depths like a gypsy peering in to read the mysteries of the universe revealed through the tea leaves. _Silly girl, everyone leaves in the end. Such is the old old story._

"What do you mean?" Jonathan asked, taking a sip of his tea, waiting calmly. Maggie would tell him in the end—she always did, if he were patient enough. He thought that maybe there were times he was the _only_ one she would tell, and that brightened some lonely part of him better left neglected.

He thought, amused, of their contradicting personalities sometimes. He was cold, methodical, obsessed with the power of the mind and drugs that influenced that mind. She was all light and warmth and passion-

_**And wouldn't we like a taste of that passion.**_

Jonathan violently pushed that train of thought aside, not before Scarecrow gave him an image of her wrapped around him like silk sheets, panting his name in adoration. It was an image that shook him, deeply, for more reasons than he cared to consider at the inconvenient moment. He was aware that she was looking at him now, _really_ looking at him, and had been for a few seconds. He shifted in his tailored suit slightly uncomfortably.

"... you're leaving for Arkham?" she asked, uncharacteristically hesitant. He loosened his tie at the question, unsure of how to explain his need for the job to his longtime friend.

"They offered me the position. It's... the next step. I'll be able to do so much _more_ there," he replied, a dark undertone seeping through.

_No lack of experimental subjects there..._

"But—you're leaving teaching?" she asked abruptly, looking bewildered. "Your Psych classes are some of the best that we have here. You're making a difference _here_," she waved her hand around.

The cafe that they always had lunch in was on campus, constantly crowded with faculty members and students. The hustle and bustle of it was its own sort of hectic zen, a brief respite before classes and meetings. It seemed like it was a throwback to a simpler time; the décor was dark but not oppressive, rather rich and in a style representative of a true coffee house. The artwork was mostly donated from students, and some of the pieces were stunning in their simplicity. He was not afraid to lose this place, only the memories that it held. He was moving on to better things.

"I want that job," he said simply, shrugging. A part of him mourned that he might lose her, but if (_**when!**_) his grandiose plan became reality, he would make sure that she was beside him. The whole stinking shithole of Gotham could burn down around him and he wouldn't care, so long as she was safe.

_**Maybe you aren't so hopeless after all... Hahahahahaha...**_

"Ah," her eyes hardened, steeling herself for the inevitable loss. He was unsettled and insulted that she thought that he considered their friendship so trifling. Jonathan Crane opened up to very few people indeed, and had considered Maggie to be perhaps his only true friend. The only one who would care if he lived, died, or snapped and killed everyone around him with his bare, wiry hands.

"I've already received my information packets, and the Powers That Be are letting me choose my own schedule. I should still be taking my lunch around this time, and the Asylum's not terribly far..." he stated casually. He was rewarded with a blinding, brilliant smile.

"Really?" she glanced up at him through her long lashes, wrinkling her nose with relief.

"Maybe," he replied back, voice cold when he'd meant only to be teasing. Maggie understood anyways. She always did when it came to him. She smirked at him, but he noticed the dark circles under her intelligent eyes. She must not have been sleeping lately. Well, it _was_ getting to be midterms, but still... Best to be sure she didn't need more medication for insomnia again.

"You look tired," he noted clinically, watching her. Maggie stretched and sighed, nodding.

"Haven't been sleeping much. We're coming up to the end of the spring semester, so everybody's either doing last minute extra-credit projects or finishing up papers and homework and god knows what else. Plus, what time I haven't been grading, I've been writing."

Jonathan nodded. It was as he thought, pleased that he had been so accurate in his analysis. It probably helped that as a professor himself, at least for the time being, he hadn't been sleeping much either. He was intrigued to know that she was writing again; she hadn't mentioned writing in a long time. He'd read some of her work, before meeting her. Most of it wasn't to his taste, but some of her works were... truly fascinating. Her short stories were the best, in his opinion, but he'd actually read very little. He preferred articles or textbooks, or the classics. Safer that way.

"Don't overwork yourself," he frowned, the wrinkles in his forehead looking like etched lines in marble, "we still have that thrice-damned faculty outing to suffer through."

"You're leaving," she raised an eyebrow. "I figured you'd be exempt from that sort of thing."

He snorted derisively. "Hardly. I'm finishing up the semester here before I take over Arkham. Apparently, the Dean can't be bothered to find someone else to cover my classes."

"Well, he has a point there, Jonathan. Plus... maybe there _is_ no one else. Not on this short notice."

"I still hate these sort of events," he muttered. She grinned at him.

"Can't blame you there, friend."

* * *

Maggie walked through the doors to her apartment building and the stench of Gotham hit her like a physical blow. Eyes watering, she gagged a little in her throat as the steaming wall of industrial decay and death, in more ways than one, beat at her senses. Finally, she opened her eyes wearily and surveyed the bustling street with a writer's eye for details.

Traffic, backed up and filled with pathetic people screaming at each other, was a riotous white noise. (In Gotham, you learned to dismiss it even with the most pounding of migraines. It was a survival tactic.) The stench, after the first terrible moments, was neatly catalouged and filed away. She peered up at the sky experimentally, tiny hand raised to protect her eyes from the sun. Even though it was overcast, which it was more often than not where she lived, the sun beat down harshly in muggy fury. She felt limp, like a wilting flower, then steeled herself. She had to get out, had to _move_, or else she might go stir-crazy. Maggie barked out a bitter laugh. Yeah, crazy.

She let her feet guide her, beating down on the cracked sidewalk, the heat waves rising from the stone and tarmac, making her blink away tears. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to be—except _out_. Her sturdy, dependable Converse would patiently lead her back to safer waters, even if her destination was...decidedly _not_. She didn't care, and thought perhaps that that should concern her.

It didn't.

She wandered, block after city block. The tired, worn faces intrigued her only mildly, blending down into an unending stream of humanity. Sometimes, the sheer _size_ of the population of Gotham fascinated and overwhelmed her. She sat down at a cafe, not ordering anything, and ignored the disgruntled stares of underpaid waiters, content to simply _see_ the city. Who ever really stopped to take a look, a really good long look, at the city they were surrounded by? It should have been suffocating, that sea of aloneness, but she felt exhilarated, swept up in the momentum of the tides. For a moment, she was utterly on her own, on a tiny little raft of a notebook, seeing a new world spread before her, momentous and terrifying. She felt like a pioneer, like Christopher fuckin' Columbus.

It might have been pathetic, but she held on to that little bubble of rapture and utter peace with both hands, desperately. She got up slowly, reluctantly, but eager to be on the move again, restless feet gently telling her to move on. Like a ghost she did, ignored by all but the irritated waiter.

Oh, she knew that his annoyed dismissal was probably due largely to her misleading appearance. Despite being in her mid twenties, she looked perhaps eighteen, at a stretch. Maggie dressed for comfort: band tee, well-fitting jeans loose enough and worn enough to fit _just right_, and her ever-trusty black-and-white Converse. Christ, if she'd been wearing her glasses, she could've passed for sixteen if she pitched her voice right.

And damn if she didn't feel like it too. She might have been a professor, had fought tooth and nail for everything in her life, but she felt lost. Like a child, who suddenly wakes up from a long, confusing dream. Confusing—yeah, that described her. She felt like despite all of her responsibility, which she tackled and excelled in, despite her hard work and independence, like she was simply playing house, always expecting a _real_ adult to come along and tell her what she was doing wrong and how to fix it. In part, she felt like she was always waiting to finish _growing up_.

It's why relationships had never really worked out for her, she supposed. People somehow sensed that childlike inner core and shied away from her warily. Maybe guys didn't _want_ to take care of women anymore; maybe that sense of devotion had been lost in the feminist revolution. The thought pained her. She was a modern, independent, driven woman but was old-fashioned in a lot of ways to her core—she still wanted a man who would spark that passion that she'd lost, and who would provide and protect her, shelter her from the world she couldn't quite fathom being fully a part of. She couldn't help wanting that; it was who she _was_, ran so deep through her that there was no question of separation—there was nothing _to_ separate.

_I'm a failure to Modern Woman,_ Maggie thought dismally. _At the end of the day, I want to be the kind of woman who devotes herself to her man. How pathetic. Stupid, stupid Maggie. _

Shaking herself out of the brutal funk, she looked up to see she was in the Narrows and frowned. One thing her deceitful appearance did well was that no one really spared her a second glance. She could have passed for any number of struggling high school students in the city slum. Hell, she even had a fake id too—who would get an id to _not_ be able to buy booze or get into clubs?

She curiously eyed some cops standing around talking quietly. Their backs were to her and she blinked, nonplussed. She wasn't a reporter, so cops might talk around her more openly, but that also didn't mean that she was particularly interested in what they were doing either. Still, there might be a story there...but again, the only thing that really intrigued her was that they were even in the Narrows. Whoever they were, they had _balls_.

She debated it for a moment, then grew bored and moved on languidly, in no hurry and no destination in mind. She went to cross the street, looking both ways cautiously as she did (better to take no extra chances in the Narrows) and somehow was and wasn't surprised to hear the squealing of tires just as she reached the midpoint of the pitted road. She froze, unable to react. The car slammed on its brakes, which probably helped, except that it still sorta hit her.

_Well, the day started off pretty well, all things considered,_ was the last thought she had.

* * *

Jack Bauer cracked his neck tiredly, taking in his partner's eyes ringed with exhaustion. They'd been in the hellish heart of the Narrows since the crack of dawn, trying to catch who was flooding the streets with a new, destructively addictive drug. The only thing they'd discovered was the name, _Teddy Bear_. He tried to be happy with the lead, any lead, but wasn't. He was angry, furious, that they hadn't made more progress, but he also couldn't blame the residents of the slums for being fearful and silent on the subject. For too long had the Narrows been ignored, left to be consumed by greed and violence and the Mob, to expect two lone beat cops to make a difference.

But, he thought with grim unyielding resolve, it was a start. It was _something_, and he'd take whatever he could get, eagerly and with broken hands. _Anything_ to make him feel something other than the yawning emptiness that his wife's death had left in him. The unfillable void of grief was staggering.

"It'll be dark soon, Jack. I wanna go home and see Michelle sometime this week," Tony chuckled mirthlessly. "I cause her enough worry out here as it is."

"Yeah. I just wish... I wish that people here weren't so _afraid_," Jack replied bitingly. Almeida didn't hold it against him—he was exhausted and impatient for results as ever. Not for the first time, Tony wondered what life he'd led before becoming a cop in the cesspool of the universe, how he'd lived in LA. He didn't ask; he wasn't the type to pry, and his partner of three years didn't seem the type to open up. He didn't mind.

The car turned by the corner, far too fast, and the scene unfolded before them in almost slow motion, like a disaster movie. Whoever was behind the wheel tried to slam on the brakes on the time, which probably saved the girl's life, but still hit her as she froze, unable to move out of the way. She slammed on to the hood and her momentum rolled her up the windshield, over the top, and finally fell back off the car. Blood began to stain her torn shirt and somewhere, they dimly registered a scream. It wasn't hers; she was quiet, still. Unmoving.

Instantly, they were running towards her. The car, most likely stolen, sped off, ignored. Jack felt for a pulse, shouting for a blanket, she was going into shock, you stupid people just _help_ for once in your god-damned lives—! Tony called the ambulance, his face tightening into some strange emotion that Jack realized was _fury_.

"Jack, the ambulances won't come down here. They've lost too many EMT's and paramedics. We have to get her to a hospital," Almeida spoke quietly, quickly, urgently.

Bauer nodded tersely, the only sign he'd heard. He picked her up gently, carrying her fragile, broken, bleeding, into the back of the squad car now missing a few hubcaps.

_Gotham consumes its children,_ he thought bleakly. _She spawns madness and consumes her own. Terri, I'm so lost without you..._

If his eyes stung, he knew his partner would neatly blame it on allergies.

* * *

Jonathan got the call in the middle of the drowsy afternoon and he took it coolly, calmly, rationally. All the while his chest was pounding, pale palms trembling as they clutched the phone white-knuckled from tension. He raced to his car, breaking every traffic law to get to the hospital, the mantra of _not Maggie, not Maggie, not Maggie _repeating over and over in his mind brokenly.

_**Jonny... Jonny, you gotta keep it together. A probable concussion and some broken ribs. Docs'll patch her up good as new. She's a fighter. Don't act like a god-damned mother hen, you milksop.**_

_I am going to find who hit her,_ he thought in wonder, _and they will beg for death before I'm through._

_**Hahaha... atta boy, Jonny. Screams and pain, and fear so sublime I think we'll cum...**_

Gripping the steering wheel, Jonathan grit his teeth and began listing the supplies he needed to create chemical hell. _Hold on, Maggie. I'm coming, I swear to you, I'm on the way. Just hold on a little longer..._

* * *

Gotham was unaware that this simple act would mark a turning point, the hit-and-run sparking something that would consume her. The city-entity, the devouring mother of stunted young, was so eternally hungry. With long, looming claws she clutched ferociously at the coming players before settling into dissatisfied slumber, dreams disturbed by echoes of coming madness.


End file.
